I guess I will have to go see the movie to understand why aliens from space land in the ocean and then do an amphibious attack on LA. Maybe it was just clever editing for the trailer.
My wife and I saw it last Friday. She loved it; I enjoyed it, though it had a facepalm-inducingly stupid reason for the alien invasion.
And the aliens came up out of the water because it’s a classic amphibious assault. (Transports touching down in the middle of cities would be far more vulnerable to being shot down with troops on board.) The first line of aliens are, in fact, Marines as well. The real gaffe was not having the aliens pound the hell out of LA via high-altitude or on-orbit artillery for many hours before invading.
“The real gaffe was not having the aliens pound the hell out of LA via high-altitude or on-orbit artillery for many hours before invading.”
We didn’t do it leading up to D-Day for reasons I will never, ever understand. But George H.W. Bush did it in Desert Storm, and we saw the effects….
I thought the first bit leading up to the arrival of the aliens was a bit cringe-inducing, dialogue-wise. It struck me that they could have used someone with real-world experience in a Marine combat unit to act as a dialogue consultant. But gosh, where ever would they find one of those? It’s not like there’s a couple hundred thousand people like that in the U.S….
The rest of it was enjoyable. The aliens aren’t really explained (beyond the water-related speculation, which may or may not have been intended to be a parody of talking-head “experts” on teevee), but it still works because the movie isn’t actually about them.
So it’s a dumb army movie.. gotcha.
Why does Bill Whittle support a professional military? How can any small government advocate? Shouldn’t he be all voluntary militia and *maybe* a draft if its really necessary?
Here’s a little advice, for your future safety. Don’t call a movie about Marines an “army movie,” in the presence of a Marine.
If you don’t support a professional military, and think that it should consist of conscripts, you’re not in favor of small government, you’re in favor of slavery. Defense is one of the legitimate functions of the federal government, regardless of its size.
uhh.. what? I’m sorry, I can figure the difference between forcing everyone to work now to pay a professional military that they might need in the future vs forcing them to fight should they ever be threatened. Except for the whole military adventure side effect of maintaining a professional military.
Ya know the Star Trek episode with the computer calculated casualties reporting to the disintegration machines? Kirk talks the computer into destroying itself (gotta love it) and they’re all horrified to think that they might actually have to fight the war themselves, so they start talking peace. What’d you think that was all about?
G’day,
Trent, believing in small government does not mean that government has to be weak. Defence is a proper role for the state. As to the conscription, no way mate. If a nation can’t raise a decent military to voluntary means it doesn’t deserve to exist.
Ralph
Ralph, a professional military is no panacea for conscription. There is no fixed line between professional and volunteer.. it’s a gradient.. with the reserve system being a good example of trying to balance the peace time force requirements with war time requirements. That balance is so obviously out of wack in the US, and its the reason why they’re always in one war or another and have been since WWII.
We’ve only had the same problem in Australia for about a decade.. but we’re getting used to not even asking why anymore.
Obviously Trent, you’re asking the wrong questions. The only gradient between professional and volunteer is in training. The ideals of why are the same. If you don’t see that, you’re in need of a civics lesson.
Although I haven’t yet seen this movie, I agree that the idea of aliens invading us “for our water” makes no sense. On the other hand, I think it highly likely that any intelligent non-human race would be so psychologically different from us that none of their actions would make any sense to us at all.
For example, imagine an alien race with a religious reason for invading Earth — say they all believe the teachings of the Great Oom, who has infallibly decreed that all planets with salt-water oceans are demon-haunted abodes of the Dark Gargar which must be destroyed — and not by soulless robotic weapons, but directly, “by the hand (or whatever) of the Righteous”. The invaders, believing us to be demons, would of course take no time to attempt to explain to us their reasons for attacking; from our point of view, they would simply show up and start killing us “for no reason”.
I have for several years now been sitting on a story in which we fight a space war against aliens who land on the moon. After decades of repelling our fruitless attacks, they leave as suddenly as they came. We land on the moon only to discover that they have done nothing more except carve it nto a series of nested, filigreed spheres. We never do figure out why.
In short, I submit that a truly alien race would be more or less incomprehensible to us in their motivations and interests.
The aliens aren’t really explained (beyond the water-related speculation, which may or may not have been intended to be a parody of talking-head “experts” on teevee), but it still works because the movie isn’t actually about them.
Yes, this is a movie about marines. It’s not a particularly deep or creative story. It’s for enjoying on a big screen on a Saturday night. It’s also a movie about Santa Monica being destroyed, so it’s got that going for it. As always, reasons for invasion are self-explanatory: the Earth is a turn-key habitat.
The premise of the alien attack in Mars Attacks! seemed to be that they were just assholes. And in that movie, it wasn’t the military that saved the day, but Slim Whitman. YMMV.
Though what would have been really awesome would be the military blowing up Mars with a recording of Slim Whitman’s “Indian Love Call.”
G’day,
Trent, the most costly war in Australia’s case was WW1 with 60,000 killed. We did not have conscription. If we can’t raise a sufficient force through voluntary means we don’t deserve our freedom.
ta
Ralph
Ralph, I don’t disagree.. but I expect the politicians at the time will. The point I’m trying to make is that a professional military is not voluntary. Instead of the drafted being required to work or fight when the time for war comes, we’re all required to work to pay the fighters to not fight in peace time – or, worse yet, for them to fight wars which are unnecessary.
Complete lack of actual combat tactics, typical natives-with-spears-defeat-Europeans-with-machine-guns-no-really crap. Characters were drawn (if you can use the term) from every democratic cliche available. And they even tried to slip in some inane political metaphors comparing aliens on Earth to Americans in the Middle East, and even the requisite suicide bomber glorification. Bad dialog, meh special effects, bad overacting, bad story, bad premise, and bad research = bad movie. Band of Brothers meets Independence Day it Aint. If you want a good Alien movie, go rent District 9.
We didn’t do it leading up to D-Day for reasons I will never, ever understand. But George H.W. Bush did it in Desert Storm, and we saw the effects….
You need to read the history leading up to D-Day, especially the brilliant deception campaign to convence Hitler that the real invasion was going to take place somewhere else. For every attack in the Normandy area in the weeks leading up to the invasion, they attacked other areas more often. They even set up Patton as the head of a fictious army for the alternate invasion. This uncertainty caused Hitler to hold back large reserves for a long time after the invasion when they might’ve been able to push our forces back into the Channel.
The point I’m trying to make is that a professional military is not voluntary.
In a word, bullshit. The military is not for amateurs and the core of any professional military is a solid cadre of career officers and enlisted personnel. Long gone are the days when we could keep a skeleton military in peacetime (e.g. 1919-1941) only to take a year or more to build up when war comes. Back in WWII, some 16 million men served in America’s armed forces, roughly one out of every seven men in the country at the time. During 1942 and even into 1943, the bulk of the fighting (and dying) was done by people who’d enlisted before the war or who were drafted in 1940 and 1941. Even with the entire US economy turned over to wartime production, it took time to develop the weapons, tactics, logistics base, and most importantly the leaders needed to win the war. After that war ended, the US military was slashed to a tiny fraction of its wartime size, only to suffer the same losses when Korea rolled around in 1950. Read about the fighting up and down the Korean countryside and how our forces were almost kicked out of the country in 1950 before Inchon. After Korea, America decided to maintain the military at readiness because in the nuclear era, you wouldn’t have time to ramp up production.
larry, maybe if your goal is to dominate the world then you can’t form an army when you’re attacked.. but there are countries that do it… peaceful countries that keep out of wars.
Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya is what a professional standing army gets you. Income taxes and big government follow. Entitlements and welfare come next. Massive national debt and economic collapse.. you know the story.
Funny, I thought we went into Afghanistan because that’s where Osama and his cohorts put together the 9/11 attacks. I guess you would’ve preferred that we just take the hit, mourn the dead, and let them get away with it. Maybe we could’ve filed a lawsuit in the World Court, or perhaps we could’ve treated it like a law enforcement issue. That’s what weakness gets you. You know the story.
Titus: “As always, reasons for invasion are self-explanatory: the Earth is a turn-key habitat.”
Hmmm… Well, for one thing if there are aliens capable of getting a significant number of people and amount of hardware here, then they aren’t going to have much problem raiding the asteroid and Kuiper belts for materials and building a few billion habitats; the advantage of this is that they don’t get shot at in the process.
Also, turnkey habitat for whom? Imagine aliens who have a metabolism that means they would be at home on Titan. Or ones who run on right-handed amino acids and left-handed sugars. Or ones who use something other than DNA for their genetic code. Or ones who use a different set of amino acids; there are hundreds of them that Earth life doesn’t use. Or…
Larry, yeaaaaaaaaaaahhhh.. cause that’s *really*workin’ out for ya.
Seriously, if you think Afghanistan is your idea of a *good* war then I’d hate to see what you consider a bad one.
So, what in your infinite wisdom would you have done following 9/11? Call for legal action? Curl up in a ball and beg them not to do it again? Pretend it didn’t happen? Whine about “why do they hate us?”
Sometimes, you don’t have to go looking for a war. Sometimes, war comes looking for you. What do you do then?
You sound like some ivory tower elitist who has very little experience in the real world. Or a wuss.
I guess I will have to go see the movie to understand why aliens from space land in the ocean and then do an amphibious attack on LA. Maybe it was just clever editing for the trailer.
My wife and I saw it last Friday. She loved it; I enjoyed it, though it had a facepalm-inducingly stupid reason for the alien invasion.
And the aliens came up out of the water because it’s a classic amphibious assault. (Transports touching down in the middle of cities would be far more vulnerable to being shot down with troops on board.) The first line of aliens are, in fact, Marines as well. The real gaffe was not having the aliens pound the hell out of LA via high-altitude or on-orbit artillery for many hours before invading.
“The real gaffe was not having the aliens pound the hell out of LA via high-altitude or on-orbit artillery for many hours before invading.”
We didn’t do it leading up to D-Day for reasons I will never, ever understand. But George H.W. Bush did it in Desert Storm, and we saw the effects….
I thought the first bit leading up to the arrival of the aliens was a bit cringe-inducing, dialogue-wise. It struck me that they could have used someone with real-world experience in a Marine combat unit to act as a dialogue consultant. But gosh, where ever would they find one of those? It’s not like there’s a couple hundred thousand people like that in the U.S….
The rest of it was enjoyable. The aliens aren’t really explained (beyond the water-related speculation, which may or may not have been intended to be a parody of talking-head “experts” on teevee), but it still works because the movie isn’t actually about them.
So it’s a dumb army movie.. gotcha.
Why does Bill Whittle support a professional military? How can any small government advocate? Shouldn’t he be all voluntary militia and *maybe* a draft if its really necessary?
Here’s a little advice, for your future safety. Don’t call a movie about Marines an “army movie,” in the presence of a Marine.
If you don’t support a professional military, and think that it should consist of conscripts, you’re not in favor of small government, you’re in favor of slavery. Defense is one of the legitimate functions of the federal government, regardless of its size.
uhh.. what? I’m sorry, I can figure the difference between forcing everyone to work now to pay a professional military that they might need in the future vs forcing them to fight should they ever be threatened. Except for the whole military adventure side effect of maintaining a professional military.
Ya know the Star Trek episode with the computer calculated casualties reporting to the disintegration machines? Kirk talks the computer into destroying itself (gotta love it) and they’re all horrified to think that they might actually have to fight the war themselves, so they start talking peace. What’d you think that was all about?
G’day,
Trent, believing in small government does not mean that government has to be weak. Defence is a proper role for the state. As to the conscription, no way mate. If a nation can’t raise a decent military to voluntary means it doesn’t deserve to exist.
Ralph
Ralph, a professional military is no panacea for conscription. There is no fixed line between professional and volunteer.. it’s a gradient.. with the reserve system being a good example of trying to balance the peace time force requirements with war time requirements. That balance is so obviously out of wack in the US, and its the reason why they’re always in one war or another and have been since WWII.
We’ve only had the same problem in Australia for about a decade.. but we’re getting used to not even asking why anymore.
Obviously Trent, you’re asking the wrong questions. The only gradient between professional and volunteer is in training. The ideals of why are the same. If you don’t see that, you’re in need of a civics lesson.
Although I haven’t yet seen this movie, I agree that the idea of aliens invading us “for our water” makes no sense. On the other hand, I think it highly likely that any intelligent non-human race would be so psychologically different from us that none of their actions would make any sense to us at all.
For example, imagine an alien race with a religious reason for invading Earth — say they all believe the teachings of the Great Oom, who has infallibly decreed that all planets with salt-water oceans are demon-haunted abodes of the Dark Gargar which must be destroyed — and not by soulless robotic weapons, but directly, “by the hand (or whatever) of the Righteous”. The invaders, believing us to be demons, would of course take no time to attempt to explain to us their reasons for attacking; from our point of view, they would simply show up and start killing us “for no reason”.
I have for several years now been sitting on a story in which we fight a space war against aliens who land on the moon. After decades of repelling our fruitless attacks, they leave as suddenly as they came. We land on the moon only to discover that they have done nothing more except carve it nto a series of nested, filigreed spheres. We never do figure out why.
In short, I submit that a truly alien race would be more or less incomprehensible to us in their motivations and interests.
Yes, this is a movie about marines. It’s not a particularly deep or creative story. It’s for enjoying on a big screen on a Saturday night. It’s also a movie about Santa Monica being destroyed, so it’s got that going for it. As always, reasons for invasion are self-explanatory: the Earth is a turn-key habitat.
The premise of the alien attack in Mars Attacks! seemed to be that they were just assholes. And in that movie, it wasn’t the military that saved the day, but Slim Whitman. YMMV.
That’s the commie pinko hollywood version of “MARS ATTACKS” in the trading card verison the military BLOWS UP MARS!
see: http://www.flickr.com/photos/31558613@N00/sets/72157625601126001/show/
Wow really? Awesome.
Though what would have been really awesome would be the military blowing up Mars with a recording of Slim Whitman’s “Indian Love Call.”
G’day,
Trent, the most costly war in Australia’s case was WW1 with 60,000 killed. We did not have conscription. If we can’t raise a sufficient force through voluntary means we don’t deserve our freedom.
ta
Ralph
Ralph, I don’t disagree.. but I expect the politicians at the time will. The point I’m trying to make is that a professional military is not voluntary. Instead of the drafted being required to work or fight when the time for war comes, we’re all required to work to pay the fighters to not fight in peace time – or, worse yet, for them to fight wars which are unnecessary.
Complete lack of actual combat tactics, typical natives-with-spears-defeat-Europeans-with-machine-guns-no-really crap. Characters were drawn (if you can use the term) from every democratic cliche available. And they even tried to slip in some inane political metaphors comparing aliens on Earth to Americans in the Middle East, and even the requisite suicide bomber glorification. Bad dialog, meh special effects, bad overacting, bad story, bad premise, and bad research = bad movie. Band of Brothers meets Independence Day it Aint. If you want a good Alien movie, go rent District 9.
We didn’t do it leading up to D-Day for reasons I will never, ever understand. But George H.W. Bush did it in Desert Storm, and we saw the effects….
You need to read the history leading up to D-Day, especially the brilliant deception campaign to convence Hitler that the real invasion was going to take place somewhere else. For every attack in the Normandy area in the weeks leading up to the invasion, they attacked other areas more often. They even set up Patton as the head of a fictious army for the alternate invasion. This uncertainty caused Hitler to hold back large reserves for a long time after the invasion when they might’ve been able to push our forces back into the Channel.
The point I’m trying to make is that a professional military is not voluntary.
In a word, bullshit. The military is not for amateurs and the core of any professional military is a solid cadre of career officers and enlisted personnel. Long gone are the days when we could keep a skeleton military in peacetime (e.g. 1919-1941) only to take a year or more to build up when war comes. Back in WWII, some 16 million men served in America’s armed forces, roughly one out of every seven men in the country at the time. During 1942 and even into 1943, the bulk of the fighting (and dying) was done by people who’d enlisted before the war or who were drafted in 1940 and 1941. Even with the entire US economy turned over to wartime production, it took time to develop the weapons, tactics, logistics base, and most importantly the leaders needed to win the war. After that war ended, the US military was slashed to a tiny fraction of its wartime size, only to suffer the same losses when Korea rolled around in 1950. Read about the fighting up and down the Korean countryside and how our forces were almost kicked out of the country in 1950 before Inchon. After Korea, America decided to maintain the military at readiness because in the nuclear era, you wouldn’t have time to ramp up production.
larry, maybe if your goal is to dominate the world then you can’t form an army when you’re attacked.. but there are countries that do it… peaceful countries that keep out of wars.
Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya is what a professional standing army gets you. Income taxes and big government follow. Entitlements and welfare come next. Massive national debt and economic collapse.. you know the story.
Funny, I thought we went into Afghanistan because that’s where Osama and his cohorts put together the 9/11 attacks. I guess you would’ve preferred that we just take the hit, mourn the dead, and let them get away with it. Maybe we could’ve filed a lawsuit in the World Court, or perhaps we could’ve treated it like a law enforcement issue. That’s what weakness gets you. You know the story.
Titus: “As always, reasons for invasion are self-explanatory: the Earth is a turn-key habitat.”
Hmmm… Well, for one thing if there are aliens capable of getting a significant number of people and amount of hardware here, then they aren’t going to have much problem raiding the asteroid and Kuiper belts for materials and building a few billion habitats; the advantage of this is that they don’t get shot at in the process.
Also, turnkey habitat for whom? Imagine aliens who have a metabolism that means they would be at home on Titan. Or ones who run on right-handed amino acids and left-handed sugars. Or ones who use something other than DNA for their genetic code. Or ones who use a different set of amino acids; there are hundreds of them that Earth life doesn’t use. Or…
Larry, yeaaaaaaaaaaahhhh.. cause that’s *really*workin’ out for ya.
Seriously, if you think Afghanistan is your idea of a *good* war then I’d hate to see what you consider a bad one.
So, what in your infinite wisdom would you have done following 9/11? Call for legal action? Curl up in a ball and beg them not to do it again? Pretend it didn’t happen? Whine about “why do they hate us?”
Sometimes, you don’t have to go looking for a war. Sometimes, war comes looking for you. What do you do then?
You sound like some ivory tower elitist who has very little experience in the real world. Or a wuss.